Nobody would have been surprised if Sam Ehlinger came back to earth a bit as a junior.
Of the small army of talents who have quarterbacked the Texas Longhorns since the program first fielded a football team in the late 1890s, only Colt McCoy has contributed more touchdowns in a single season than Ehlinger’s seemingly otherworldly effort of 41 in 2018. Given that 16 of those scores came courtesy of his legs, which was good enough to snap Vince Young’s single-season school quarterback rushing record, Ehlinger joined the likes of college football greats in Tim Tebow, Cam Newton, Johnny Manziel, Marcus Mariota, Lamar Jackson, and Baker Mayfield as the only quarterbacks to ever total 25 passing touchdowns and 15 rushing scores in a single season.